Stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui dropped from Gurugram Comedy Festival

Mumbai, Dec 07: Stand-up comedian Munawar Faruqui has been dropped from Gurgaon Comedy Festival citing "public safety".

Gurgaon Comedy Festival is one of the largest comedy festivals scheduled from December 17-19 at Airia Mall in Gurgaon. The 3-day event, includes India's super favorite comics Rahul Dua, Gaurav Kapoor, Harsh Gujral, Jeeveshu Ahluwalia, Gaurav Gupta, Amit Tandon, Atul Khatri, Nishant Suri, and others.

Mubin Tisekar, founder of The Entertainment Factory, organisers of the show, told Indian Express that "We did not want to hurt anyone's sentiments or put the public in danger... so we removed him from the panel. The decision was taken yesterday and we made changes on the poster and ticketing platform. For us, safety of artists and public is a priority... audience is everything."

Meanwhile, Haryana head of BJP's IT department head Arun Yadav has filed a police complaint against the comedian, accusing him of insulting Hindu gods and goddesses.

"To maintain peace and harmony between different sections of the society, I request you to look into the matter and stop him... His activities have offended my Hindu faith," said in his complaint.

Faruqui claimed that nearly 15 of his shows were called off in the last two months because of the threats to the venue and audiences.

In January this year, Faruqui was arrested by the Indore Police in a case for allegedly hurting religious sentiments and was in jail for almost a month.

The comic, who has alleged heavy trolling against him on social media in the past, was released from the Indore central jail on February 7 after the Supreme Court granted him bail in the case.

Faruqui and four others were arrested on January 1 following a complaint by a BJP MLA's son that objectionable remarks about Hindu deities and Union Home Minister Amit Shah were passed during a comedy show at a cafe in Indore on New Year's day.

It may be recalled that, last month The Bengaluru police have denied permission to Munawar Faruqui's stand-up comedy show in the amid protest by the Hindu right wing outfits who alleged that the artist had hurt the Hindu sentiments in one of his shows.

After his show got cancelled in Bengaluru, Faruqui posted on his instagram "Faruqui said, "Nafrat jeet gayi, artist haar gaya (hate has won, artist has lost). I'm done, goodbye. Injustice."